Originally released on Cd though the Polish black metal label Agonia, Feldgrau's sole album Mechanized Misanthropy was later re-issued on vinyl by Satanic Skinhead Productions with different album art, in stock here at C-Blast for the first time. Taking its name from the German for the "field grey" colorations of Teutonic uniforms from the battlefields of the early 20th century, Feldgrau was another hateful, war-obsessed project from Pete Helmkamp (Angelcorpse / Kerasphorus / Order From Chaos / Revenge), steeped in militaristic imagery, cruel misanthropic visions, and rendered through a raw, low-fi assault of mangled black/death riffs and blazing blastbeats. But if the cold, mechanical music of Feldgrau is connected to any one of Helmkamp's other projects, it would have to be the short-lived industrial outfit Terror Organ, which essentially transformed into Feldgrau mid-decade; this outfit also included his partner from T.O., Vhex, who brought more of her grinding distorted synths and electronic rhythms, with guitarist Destruct (also of Immolation, Angelcorpse and Perdition Temple) rounding out the lineup. The eleven songs on Mechanized are a scattershot mix of weird industrial doom, mechanized blackened death metal, and rumbling noise that's occasionally shot through with some fucking killer majestic riffs and blasts of filthy, throbbing electronics. I was a fan of Terror Organ during their short run (and actually got to see them perform live a couple of times when an old noise band I was in played with 'em), and hear a lot of the same elements appearing here. Waves of black, buzzing Brighter Death Now/Genocide Organ-style synthesizers sweep in amid crackling electricity, the monstrous vocals mixing with crushing low-end drones to create a strange kind of blackened power electronic assault, but Feldgrau welds that to a swarm of damaged primitive death metal riffs and programmed blastbeats, weird sputtering electronic rhythms and distorted female backing vocals, buzzing insect-voices and washes of charred, blasted ambience. Vhex unleashes volleys of stomping percussion that transform the music into a weird mix of Test Dept. pummel n' clank and stripped-down death metal on tracks like "The Black March", and at other times shifts into almost Mz.412-esque industrial sounds. Constantly shifting between a kind of experimental, militant industrial death metal and a mutant blackened death-industrial sound, this is the strangest of all of Helmkamp's bands, and definitely one of my favorites. And like anything that Helmkamp is involved with, there's a lot of cruel imagery and pervasive themes of Social Darwinism running through his work, so sensitive, "up with people"-type personalities may want to steer clear...

Comes in a black and white jacket with printed inner sleeve, on black vinyl, limited to five hundred copies.